Barrow Media Center

Category Archives: Poetry Month

As we near the end of the year, I’m collaborating with Natalie Hicks, one our gifted teachers, to create a project with the entire 3rd grade. In science, 3rd grade studies habitats and human impact on them. Our school is also a “Green School” which offers many opportunities throughout the year for students to explore how we care for our planet.

Each 3rd grade class is coming to the library for 2 one-hour sessions. The purpose is to use found objects from nature to create letters. Those letters are photographed so they can be used to spell various words and also inspire writing. Ms. Hicks and I both gathered as many objects as we could from outside the school and our own yards. Our original plan was for students to bring in objects to use for the project, but that piece didn’t happen this time.

Session 1:

As students were seated, they saw a clip from a Rose Bowl Parade video.

The purpose was to get them thinking about real-world examples of people using objects from nature to create. Another purpose was to think about the time and planning that went into the floats. Our students had a connection to the Rose Bowl since UGA played there this year.

Next, I segued into a book called Our World of Food: Discover Magical Lands Made of Things You Can Eat. Each page features a scene made with foods of a similar color and poetry that brings the scene to life. Again, we talked about how each object was intentionally placed into the scene.

Finally, I gave students their challenge. They could choose up to 5 objects from our nature tables to create one of their initials. I asked them to think about the shape of their letter and which objects might be the best choices to form that shape. We looked at some pictures of fonts as well as some letters found in nature for inspiration.

I covered our library tables with colorful tablecloths to use as backgrounds and building spaces. Students sat in groups of 5 and waited for their turn to collect objects. It was wonderful to have Ms. Hicks, the classroom teacher, and Ms. Em (EIP teacher) as support during this project. Ms. Hicks had conversations with students about their selections, while the classroom teacher and I supported students with questions about how to build their letters.

When letters were made, students used iPads to take a photograph and then bring the iPad to me to upload the picture in Google Drive.

Then, students returned their nature objects for the next class to use and went to Ms. Em to select nature poetry to read while others finished. My hope was that reading lots of nature poems would serve as a mentor text for the work we will do in session 2.

I was very impressed by how efficient students were. They selected objects, experimented with combining them in different ways, and moved through all the areas of the lesson with the help of adults. Adults were all able to circulate and have conversations with students about their selections, creations, and reading. I wonder how things would have been different if we had time for students to actually collect the objects themselves.

Before session 2, I’ll print the pictures so students can use them in their writing and recording. We can’t wait to see how all of this comes together.

Like this:

Each year, we celebrate poetry month by hosting Poem In Your Pocket days in the library. Across 2 days, every class comes to the library to read aloud original and favorite poems into an open microphone. We broadcast these readings over Youtube Live so that families, community, and beyond can enjoy our poetry too.

Our readings will take place from 8:00AM-2:30PM EST on April 12 and 13, 2018.

All the links to the Youtube events can be found at our 2018 Poem In Your Pocket Smore. https://www.smore.com/p9qbk

You can also view the schedule here:

Thursday April 12

8:00

2nd – VanderWall

8:30

2nd – Woodring

9:00

2nd- B. Douglas

9:30

3rd-Morman

10:00

1st-Cunningham

10:30

1st Skinner

11:00

PreK-Trina

11:20

PreK-Heather

12:00

Lunch

12:30

1st Stuckey

1:00

K-Clarke

1:30

4th Coleman

2:00

4th Weaver

Friday April 13

8:00

2nd – Brink

8:30

K-Hocking

9:00

2nd-Boyle

9:30

3rd-Thompson

10:00

5th grade class 1 Freeman

10:30

1st Wyatt

11:00

5th grade class 2 Freeman

11:30

3rd-Haley

12:00

3rd-Arnold

12:30

K- Sandifer

1:00

5th grade class 3 Freeman

1:30

K- Lauren

2:00

4th Monroe

If you choose to watch our videos live or watch the archives, we encourage you to tweet comments to our students using the hashtag #barrowpoems We’ll share your comments with students as they come in. Happy Poetry Month!

For 2 solid days, students in every class have been visiting the library to share poetry into our open microphone for poem in your pocket day. As always, this was a special day where every single student in our school had an opportunity to step up and share their voice through poetry that they carried in their pockets. Many students shared original poems which ranged from silly to humorous to scary to sentimental to observant. Many students also shared favorite poems that they copied from our large poetry collection in the library. Sometimes it takes a lot to get up in front of your peers and read aloud, but I love the accessibility of poetry. It can be short but powerful. It can give you a chance to shine before your nerves kick in. It can quickly create reactions from your audience. It creates moments.

As usual, there were many special moments. Teachers shared poems from their phones in their pockets.

A student who spoke limited English, broke out of her comfort zone to share a poem all in English with a friend standing by her side. PreK poets recited their very first poems of their school career as their teachers whispered the words into their ears.

5th graders filled up their poetry slot by repeatedly going to the microphone to share poems from the books displayed on our poetry tables. Families who couldn’t be here with us in the room were able to watch their children perform via our live Google Hangout. Sweet poems about brothers were shared.

One of our newer traditions at Barrow is to participate each year in Poem In Your Pocket Day. This national event takes place on April 27 this year, but due to our state testing, we will celebrate a bit early.

On these days, all students carry an original or favorite poem throughout the day and come to the library for a 20-30 minute slot to share poems on our open microphone. I setup a poetry atmosphere with decorations, and each student has a moment to share poems. We celebrate with rounds of snaps and quiet claps.

We also broadcast this live on Youtube Live(Google Hangouts On Air) so that other schools, family, and community can join in the 2 days of fun. If you watch live, you are highly encouraged to tweet your snaps of celebration for students so that they can see your tweets on our media center projector. They love to get shout outs.

Visit our Smore page for a full schedule as well as links to every live feed. As each feed ends, it is automatically archived to Youtube for your future enjoyment.

One of our favorite kinds of poetry to create each year is book spine poetry. It is a kind of found poetry where the words found on the spines of books create the lines of a poem. Every 2nd grade class came to the library for a one-hour session to create book spine poems individually or in pairs.

To begin our time, I briefly explained found poetry and then told a story about how I created my own book spine poem. The story was meant to serve as a model for how students might craft their own poem, but they certainly didn’t have to go about the process the exact same way as me.

I started in the everybody section of the library and started reading the spines of all the books on the shelf from the beginning. I was looking for a title that jumped out at me as a starting place. I happened upon Quest and Journey by Aaron Becker. I loved how those two words sounded together and I decided to start looking for titles that seemed to go with those two words, which meant looking for titles that were about traveling in some way. I passed by many titles that didn’t fit, so I left them on the shelf without pulling them off. I continued this process until I had found I Took a Walk, In My Dreams I Can Fly, and Goin’ Someplace Special. I also had the book The Ride but I decided that I didn’t like the sound of those words with the others in my stack so I put that book back on the return cart. Next, I tried several ways of arranging the books until I had a sequence I was happy with. After practicing a few times, I recorded my poem with my phone and uploaded it online to share with the world.

After my short story, we went back through the steps and put them into a concise list on the board for students to reference. Then, students got to work. They wandered the shelves looking for that first book and then went from there. As was expected, some of them found their own strategies for creating the poems. Some struggled with finding that first book. Some wanted the support of someone walking with them to look for books. The teacher and I wandered around too and talked with individual students until they started reaching the recording phase.

Once students recorded using an iPad, they brought the iPad to me and we immediately plugged the iPad into my computer and uploaded to Youtube. They also went to the teacher to take a photograph of their book stack that could be printed and put into their poetry books they are creating in class. All books that were used went onto a cart parked in the middle of the library, and students were welcome to read those books while they waited on classmates to finish.

When students finished, I pulled all of their work into Youtube playlists which I emailed to teachers to share with families. We concluded our time by sitting together and snapping for each poem on our playlist. I hope you’ll take a moment to listen to, enjoy, and snap for the poems from each 2nd grade class.

Day 1 of Poem In Your Pocket Day is a wrap. Fourteen classes came to the library for 20-30 minute sessions of poetry reading. Each student had an opportunity to step up to our open microphone and read an original or favorite poem. It is truly amazing to see some students step out of their comfort zone to speak in front of their peers for a very short amount of time. Poetry is so accessible to so many people. It opens opportunities for students that sometimes other kinds of writing can’t. As always, there were magical moments during the day.